Pack Your Bag for Pakistan (October Surprise Anyone)?

Since Benazir Bhutto's assassination, Pakistan has largely fallen off the front pages. But make no mistake about it, the situation inside Pakistan remains a dangerous threat to American security.

Apparently in response to those fears, SecDef Robert Gates yesterday raised the possibility that U.S. troops may be "invited" by Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf to combat Al Qaeda and Taliban extremists who have taken refuge along the Pakistan-Afghani border.

Gates' bombshell seems to have gone largely unreported. Why, because just a few days earlier, Musharraf had rejected the notion that he would entertain the idea of U.S. troops on Pakistani soil.

So what is going on here?

First, Islamic extremists, including in all likelihood, the leadership of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, have more or less set up permanent shop in the wild west of Pakistan along its border with Afghanistan. Musharraf admits that his forces are unable and he is unwilling to take on Al Qaeda and have been consistently attacked by growing ranks of extremists who have taken a huge toll of Pakistani military sent to the area to combat them. U.S. and NATO troops are already stretched too thin inside Afghanistan to combat the Taliban, and Gates is signaling that he wants to transfer more U.S. troops to do what we should have done years ago: go after Bin Laden once and for all and take down his rebuilt command structure that has reconstituted itself. (Note to FL GOP: Mr. Guiliani, seems to have come up real short on any plan to get Bin Laden other than to yak and yak about it!) .

Second, a new spring offensive by the Taliban in Afghanistan, fueled by a formidable Taliban/Al Qaeda alliance, may further undermine the shaky hold that Afghan's president, Hamid Karzai has on the sourthern part of his country. NATO forces are inaequate to the job and cutting off the supply lines inside Pakistan apparently represents Gates' new strategy for stemming the Taliban spring offensive.

Third, although Musharraf cannot succumb politically to US pressure to have US troops enter Pakistan since he would risk further inflaming his already dicey domestic political situation, he grudgingly acknowledges that U.S. troops can engage in "hot pursuit" against extremists crossing from Afghanistan into Pakistan -- something that Barack Obama already has called for except Obama includes Al Qaeda in his equation, not just the Taliban.

All of this is to say that the real war against Al Qaeda has yet to be fought where it counts -- in Pakistan and in an area where Musharraf has lost virtually total control. Whether Gates' trial balloon will fly or be shot down remains to be seen, but, unlike his predecessor Rumsfeld, Gates gets it. Is Bush planning an "October Surprise" to capture or kill Bin Laden with a division or three of US troops hunting him down between now and the eve of the presidential elections? Stay tuned!

Comments

[Feettotheflame]

Preemption is premeditated murder.

My neighbor might hate me and want to literally kill me, but if I kill him first I go to jail because I committed the crime.

There may be people who live in other countries who wish to harm us, but for our soldiers to indiscriminately murder them from the sky in fighter jets is amoral and cowardly. Exactly as it would be if I killed my neighbor.

A more useful approach would be to ask "why does my neighbor hate and want to kill me?"

Americans need to ask themselves this question.

[Feettotheflame]

You peoples need to understand that Islamic Fundamentalism is the natural reaction to American Imperialism.

Americans invade/occupy foreign countries killing innocents and people who oppose our materialist values(also innocents).

Now I'm not a pHD, but who are the terrorists again?

Leave the tribal peoples of Pakistan and Afghanistan alone! How would you like the Chinese or Russians coming into our country to govern us!?

[Chewelahboy]

Ambassador Ginsberg, So what's the larger geopolitical situation in the region. Pakistan shares a border with Afganistan, China, Iran and India, and in the northeastern part of the country not too far from Islamabad there's a narrow strip of land only a few kilometers wide separating Pakistan from Tajikistan. How do Pakistan's neighbors feel about a potential radical muslim takeover? Does China have troops in the area? What is the status along the border between Kabul and Islamabad? I think we all are aware of the threat to Musharraf from the "wild west".

[Zenobius]

I just don't see anything really good coming out of invading Pakistan, even in hot pursuit from Afghanistan. After all, half of our supplies to Afghanistan go through Pakistan. Routing these supplies through Iran or Russia instead is unappealing. It is almost certainly easier for the Pashtun rebels to disrupt our supply lines than it is for us to capture one man, or even fifteen men, somewhere in hiding on the NW Frontier.

It seems reasonable to predict that the rebels can obtain weapons and IED's, and make supplying Afghanistan a problem as nasty as truck resupply of forces in Iraq is now.

No so long ago, Musharraf, in Europe, admitted that the Pak army is trying to put down the revolt, not find OBL. This is probably the Bush admin's response: help us find OBL or we will "help" you. Looking at Iraq, Musharraf and the rest of the Pakistani elite are smart enough to be terrified of US help.

I have a blog, mostly about events in Pakistan, at: http://www.rememberjenkinsear.blogspot.com/
if you want to read more about events in Pakistan and my take on them.

[massimo1]

Even a successful October surprise would be too late for the election cycle. The war is now taking a back seat (who even mentions the body count now????) and everyone knows it's Bush's war anyway. I believe the electorate will have moved on to more domestic worries, as well as deciding who can better carry out future sane foreign policy - and it's clear the rich white men of the republican party are ill-positioned to do that.

[CSE]

Important thoughts - we GAVE Pakistan billions of dollars to bolster their military and policing powers and use them to help eradicate a situation they assisted in creating in Afghanistan.

And, isn't it a good thing that another country hasn't provided the pesky rebels with a weapon like the stinger missile to use against us - you know, kinda like we did in the past?

The multiple failures of proxy wars and the money thrown to fuel them are revealing the true cost of hegemony - the demand for American lives.

[rlc41]

Afghanistan, Iraq, soon to be Iran and now Pakistan. Just too many places for a young soldier to pick from for his two year summer vacation. Good thing they don't have a choice.

Actually I wonder where bush thinks he will get the soldiers for his October surprise? He better get on that right now. He will try something. No way he, his administrion, or the GOP will go silently into the night.

[VictorLudorum]

The small press in pakistan is more eloquent around the lower k life ...There has been no coorporative hand outs to the journalists that wander everywhere...in 80s The indian prime minister gave away 500 thous each in show of cooperation.........Osama has too much lime light rom US Press and i still personally cannot tell what he has against a Nation with 'speech freedom ' and then there is micheal moore's definition of free speech...

[VictorLudorum]

when a bank robber holds up a bank Amb,the police defines its policy no 1 to save the hostages from the robbers terror... "dont shoot ,we will do what you tell us " " we will deliver what you want ,just dont hurt the hostages and hand yourselves over to us!

[filmunas]

What's Ginsberg up to? Is he trying to gin up another war? My heart bleeds for the dear country with hucksters like him around.

[carefulcautious]

Al Qaeda is a construct of Bush's fevered imagination. They were a pretext to war. But just suppose for a moment that they *did* exist, that they *do* oppose us. Why do you suppose they are against us? Because we INTERFERE IN THEIR AFFAIRS. America, in her imperialist, ReTHUGlican glory, has global domination on her mind. Sounds to me like chickens coming home to roost, as Dr. Ward Churchill so aptly put it. There is NO terrorist threat to America, there is only George W. Bush's threat to America. Bin Laden is a middle-eastern hero, and rightly so. Haven't read much of Marc Ginsberg, but he sounds like a tool of imperialist zig heil BushIT.

Edwards/Obama 08! Si su pweda! Yes, we will!

[kirotahoe]

lets see - u.s. attacks taliban/quida in tribal areas, thereby occupying taliban forces while mucharref rounds up his enemies in the rest of the country. is that the plan?

[humblediplomat]

I think containment would be much more effective than opening another front and expending even more money and troops in Pakistan.
If we can get bin laden, great, but as for all the tribesmen in that region who may support al-queda, let them have the mountains of Pakistan. We have always had enemies in the world, and we always will, no matter how many countries we try to invade.

[zenhead]

Any move by Musharraf to bring American troops into Pakistan will be the last nail in his coffin. There are plenty of conflicting internal groups which would be united in an anti-American response to the news that Americans are inside Pakistan.
If Bush can screw this up, he will. That means: Cheney WILL demand that American forces be inserted into Pakistan, and there will be enormous efforts by American Special Operators to entice al-Qaeda or Taliban groups to come across borders in that area ... which are nebulous already ... so that a "hot pursuit" situation can be gamed.
Musharraf will be assassinated by someone, or, coup d'etat of some kind will occur, if the Americans enter Pakistan. The leak that Gates wants to send more troops to Afghanistan should be seen as a very serious development. That could mean that he knows a lot more than we know and there are only so many troops left to send.
General Casey has already indicated there's not much elasticity in the American Army for any new developments. If Bush is stupid enough to hang on to the surge forces until May, then he will have waited too long. That's why that's exactly what he'll do ... he's screwed things up more than der Fuhrer did.
We will see if Casey and Gates have the balls to either get their way or resign. It would be monumental if they did. It would also be long overdue. I doubt that that will happen. That would mean they have more courage that I suspect they possess. Once again, the men in the front lines have no leaders with balls.
Big surprise.

[Rockyman]

Can't put it past the Repugs to act in a way to incite Radical Muslims just before the Gen. Election. They are all about retaining power and either success or an escalating tension around the world means McCain can play the "stronger on terror" trump card the Repugs won in '04 playing. You do not need to be a cynic to believe military action may be in the planning stages almost entirely because for political reasons.